A Fundamental Contradiction of Socialism

Since forcible equalization of wealth will be resisted by those who possess it and feel entitled to their possession of it, a revolutionary vanguard will be needed to impose the equalization. But this vanguard cannot have power equal to the power of those upon whom it imposes its will: the power of the vanguard must far outstrip the power of those to be socialized. So right at the outset of the new socialist order an inequality of power is instituted to bring about an equality of wealth -- in contradiction to the socialist demand for equality.

The upshot is that no equality is attained, neither of wealth nor of power. The apparatchiks end up with both, and their subjects end up far worse off   than they would have ended up in a free and competitive society. And once the apparatchiks get a taste of the good life with their luxury  apartments in Moscow and their dachas on the Black Sea, or their equivalent in other lands, they will not  want to give it up.  Greed has ever been with us, and it is folly to suppose that it is a fruit of capitalism or that its cure is socialism.